Smart sustainable energy lands at Tegel airport
One of the largest urban developments in Europe is taking-off at Berlin’s former Tegel airport with the arrival of our smart sustainable energy supply.
Once Germany’s fourth busiest airport, with take-offs and landing nearly every minute until its closure in November 2020, the Berlin’s Tegel airport site is now home to the Urban Tech Republic - one of the largest urban developments in Europe.
In a joint venture with Berliner Stadtwerke, using a combination of environmentally friendly technologies, we’re bringing an innovative heating and cooling solution to this new research and industrial park expected to be home to 1,000 businesses. The 500-acre site will also house the Schumacher Quarter, a residential development of more than 5,000 apartments which will also benefit from the sustainable energy concept.
Energy will be supplied via a high efficiency low-temperature 12 km network called LowEx. By using temperatures of only 40 degrees Celsius in the winter and 20 degrees in the summer this smart concept saves energy and money. Unlike traditional district heating networks, lower temperatures mean it can be used directly to supply underfloor or wall heating systems as well as air conditioning without distribution losses. Higher or lower temperatures can also be achieved as required by heat pumps and cooling systems.
What’s more all energy will be generated, stored and consumed on site in a decentralised and sustainable way from a mix of combined heat and power, solar, geothermal energy and waste heat.
With its climate-friendly cooling and heating supply, as well as the combination of renewable energies and state-of-the-art engineering, the Tegel Airport project will not only become a model for future community development but is unique across the world at such a planned scale.
Tegel is the first network of a completely new generation and a pioneering step for community energy, but its only one of the many ways we are working to help cities reach their environmental targets as we move towards a future energy world.
In the UK on London’s Royal Docks at Silvertown another innovative energy network is in development. Here our ectogrid™ system will connect buildings to make the most efficient use of energy, capturing excess heating or cooling and sharing to neighbouring buildings as needed. This system will reduce the demand for energy supplied into its system by up to 75%, significantly cutting carbon emissions into the city air.